Carriers Urge SMR Auction for 2.5 GHz

Small- and medium-sized wireless carriers urged a standard simultaneous multiple round auction in the 2.5 GHz band, in a letter posted Tuesday in FCC docket 18-120. “A single round bid does not allow for price discovery,” the providers said: “There is little public information on the value of this spectrum, especially the value assigned by small companies, so it will be hard to know what a winning bid will be until we see others’ bids.” Licenses here "are unique due to different levels of incumbency -- even within markets,” the companies said. Among signers were Cellcom, Inland Cellular, VTel Wireless, C Spire, GCI Communications, Union Telephone, Carolina West Wireless, NE Colorado Cellular and NTT Docomo Pacific.